


Red Hood, Begin Again

by Living_Free



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics)
Genre: Crack, Fluff, Gen, Humor, Some angst, adorable beanpole tim drake, batbros, batfam, clingy dick grayson, cutie patootie damian wayne, jason moves to appleton, rhato - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-17
Updated: 2018-09-21
Packaged: 2019-07-13 10:15:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16015814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Living_Free/pseuds/Living_Free
Summary: Post RHATO #25, Jason is on his own. A lone wolf, a man on a mission, ready to traverse the darkest of paths, commit the most soul sucking actions - such as paying his electricity bill.Who knew that adult civilian life sucked so hard?Groceries, cooking, bills, neighbors, and oh yes - a job. Jason Todd can do it all, with a little help from his pesky siblings, who manage to lovingly interfere all the way from Gotham.





	1. Chapter 1

Jason sucked in a deep breath and adjusted his tie. It was his first official job interview as Jacob Podd, a perfectly average civilian resident of Appleton. He was interviewing at a primary school as a teaching assistant, thanks to a handy false resumé, courtesy of Tim Drake. 

Jacob Podd, 22, had graduated from Gotham Community College with an Associate’s Degree in Early Childhood Education. Jason thought that he was pretty good at this, seeing as all that he had to do was not what his mom did with him. Pretty self explanatory, really. Also, don’t shut your child out and not avenge their gruesome murder when given twenty opportunities to do just that. That was important. 

Just then, his phone pinged with a text.

\- DICK - good luck little wing I know that you’ll ace this interview!! <3 <3

Jason rolled his eyes but texted back a quick “thx” that was promptly replied to with more hearts from Dick. 

Stupid, mushy, Dick. 

Jason shoved the phone back into his pocket, notably not deleting the message. He walked up to the reception and put on his best smile. “Hi, I’m Jacob Podd. I’m here for the teaching assistant interviews?”

***

The woman across from him was combing through Jason’s resumé as though she was hoping find a lie. “So, have you had any experience with children, Mr. Podd?”

Jason grinned. “Oh, yes. I have two younger brothers, and while one’s just a few years younger to me, Dami’s just a kid. I’d like to think that I’ve had a hand in raising him.”

Somewhere, Damian was developing an itch. 

Jason fished out his wallet and flipped to a picture of Damian and himself that had been photoshopped to look as though Damian was sitting in his lap. In the picture, Damian also looked like Jon Kent. 

In reality, Damian had spirited Jon away from his bed one night a week ago, and had arranged a photo session in Jason’s Appleton apartment that had staged Jon and Jason as loving brothers. Jon was an angel, Jason could admit. 

“He’s just an absolute peach,” Jason said sweetly. Then, he focused on what Dick had taught him to do with the puppy eyes and said, “I’m just sad that I can’t work at his school and be closer to him. No vacancies there.”

Damian’s itch was now a full blown rash.

The woman’s face melted. Bingo. “That’s lovely, Mr. Podd.”

Jason grinned. “Please, call me Jay.”

***

Jason stepped out of the interview, a newly-employed man. He took a minute to feel very proud of himself before remembering that Dick had extracted a promise to call him as soon as it was over. Jason dialed and waited for the onslaught of Dick-enforced loving. 

“Hey, Dickface.”

“Little Wing!” Dick’s voice sang through the phone. Jason sighed. 

“I got the job.”

Dick squealed delightedly and Jason flinched. “I knew you could do it, Little Wing! I even did a tiny prayer for you this morning, so I was doubly sure.”

Jason felt his throat constrict and his eyes burn at the edges. Stupid, over-involved, hyper-emotional Dick. “Thanks,” he managed to grunt out. “And tell Timbo and Dames thanks too, for their help.”

“Why don’t you tell him yourself? Damian wants to talk to you.”

“I do not!”

Jason chuckled at the indignant shriek that was no doubt his baby brother. Dick was probably giving the phone to him anyway. Sure enough, a second later he heard a glum, “Hello Todd.”

“Hey baby brat,” Jason said cheerfully. “Your masterful ruse worked. I got the job.”

“As I knew it would,” Damian replied, and even through the phone, Jason could envision the boy’s frog-like grin of success. God, but he loved that brat something fierce. He wouldn’t tell him that of course.

Emotional suppression was the name of the game. 

“Well thanks, boy genius,” Jason said. “I’ll send you a gift soon.”

“A cat?” 

“Sure,” Jason said agreeably. “Is Tim around?”

“Drake has left for work,” Damian informed him. “He will not be back until tomorrow - he is spending the night with the Clone in Metropolis. They are going on a ‘mission’.”

“A mission, eh?” Jason smirked. 

“Drake’s lack of subtlety is disgusting. He had been making kissy faces at his phone all morning.”

Jason burst out laughing. He soon bid his brothers goodbye and cut the call. No sooner than he had cut it, though, than Dick had texted him. 

\- DICK - Bye Jay, love you lots <3<3

Just then, the interviewer, Principal Smith, came around the corner. “Celebratory phonecall, Jacob?” She asked, smiling. 

“My older brother makes me call him at least once a day,” Jason said truthfully. “I was talking to the little one, and he were gossiping about the middle child.”

“What’s his name?”

“Uh, Jim.”

Principal Smith smiled. “I think it speaks very well that you’re able to engage meaningfully with the younger children,” she said. “You are going to be assigned class 3A when you start. You’ll be working under Ms. Rosa Clement.”

“I look forward to it,” Jason said, and after a long time, was surprised to find that he truly meant it.


	2. Chapter 2

It was Jason’s first day on the job, and he was sore, having gotten from from a night of doling out bloody justice. He had also saved a cat from a tree for a crying child and her bewildered but grateful mother, but no one would be reporting on that, nooooooo-

“You must be Jacob,” a voice sounded at his nipple. 

Jason looked down and saw a tiny, lean woman looking up at him expectantly. “Er, yes? You must be Ms. Clement.”

The tiny woman nodded, her dark wavy hair bobbing around her face, and dislodged her glasses which she pushed back up her nose. “Call me Rosa - away from the kids, that is.” She looked Jason up and down. “You’re big,” she commented. “Good! You can handle more than one kid at once. You have any experience wrangling kids?”

Jason had a vivid vision of the many times he had had to stuff Damian into bed as the boy insisted on going to Dick to be with him when he was injured in the medbay. “Oh, yeah. I’m great with kids.”

Rosa beamed and turned around. “Then we begin!” She yelled, and marched into the classroom full of loud, rampaging kids. “Hey you kids, get into your seats!” She yelled happily, and was greeted with happy squeals from the students. “I taught second grade last year,” she told Jason in an undertone, “I know these kids.”

Jason just nodded and tried to look non-threatening. 

“Class of 3A, you know who I am. This young man is Mr. Podd, my TA. You are to give him the same respect as you would give me. Clear?”

“Clear!” Several children shouted cheerfully. 

“Excellent!” Rosa yelled. Jason startled. Lord, but this woman was loud for someone her size. Usually, Tim-sized people tended to be quiet, and slippery, and...Tim-like. Rosa Clement was...something else. 

He watched as she loudly explained the classroom rules, bathroom passes, and the do-not-throw-your-eraser rule, and found himself liking this strange new person. “Mr. Podd!” She suddenly yelled. “Would you help me in handing out these sums sheets?”

Jason smiled and did as asked, and was doing it quite well in his opinion, when a small voice piped up, “Mr. Podd!”

Jason looked down at a gap-toothed ginger child. Oh God, Dick would’ve gone crazy and adopted him if he were here right now. “Yes, little carrot man?”

The child giggled. “I’m Aaron! And your arms are really big!”

“Thank you,” Jason said. “I worked very hard to make them swole.”

“Can you lift me?”

“Sure.”

“Can you lift a desk?”

“Yup.”

“Can you lift Ms. Clement?”

“I think she would kill me, but I guess I could.”

“I hold my weight in my hips, Mr. Podd, and I am deceptively heavy,” Ms. Clement said, but she was smiling. “On the subject of weight, say Mr. Podd weighs 80kg. I weigh 55kg. What’s the difference?”

The children started writing in earnest, and Rose winked at Jason, who smiled back. Yup, he definitely liked his new boss.

***

“Hiiii Jaybiiird!”

Jason sighed. “Hi Dick,” he said as his lunch heated up in the staffroom microwave. 

“How’s your first day of work?”

“It’s great. There’s this cute ginger kid that you’d adopt in a hot second.”

“Awwwww,” Dick cooed, and Jason felt his own masculinity receding. “How’re your colleagues?”

“My supervisor is great,” Jason said. “I’m the TA for third grade.”

“Timmy’s going to run a background check on your supervisor,” Dick said matter-of-factly. Then, he dropped his voice, “Jay, did you get out to...work your second job last night?”

“Geez, Dick, you make me sound like I work a corner,” Jason sniggered. “But yeah, I did.”

“Oh,” Dick said. “That’s probably why Bruce was all huffy at breakfast. He wouldn’t even give me the morning paper.”

Jason had got the morning copy and had grinned for hours. “The Red Hood Comes To Appleton!” the cheery headline had blared. There had even been a small bit about the cat he’d rescued. 

“Heh. B can go and suck a lemon.”

“In happier news, Kon gave Timmy a ring. They’re so in love, it’s adorable!”

Jason’s world came screeching to a halt. “An...engagement ring?”

“No, just one of those hay strands that he tied around Tim’s finger. It was so cute, he actually hangs around outside Tim’s window and has to avoid the security cameras just to wish him goodnight.”

Jason smiled. Look at Timbo, in a loving, wholesome relationship that wasn’t with Dick. “Bet Bruce hit the roof, eh?”

“Oh, boy, did he ever,” Dick whispered. “He was ranting about how Tim was too young, and then he ranted at poor Clark on the phone, and now Clark is ranting at poor Kon-El. The things those boys do for love,” he sighed wistfully. “Oh, and speaking of Timmy, how’s that new apartment been working out? I don’t know why you insist on that grimy place, even something a little better would go a long way in not making me worry-“

“You always worry,” Jason interrupted him. “You are Dick Worrywart Grayson. And I chose that apartment to be close enough to...the happenings in the city.”

“Oh, Jay,” Dick said quietly, “I hope you don’t think that you’re being a drain on mine or Timmy’s finances, because you know we’ll never-“

Damn, damn, double damn Dick and his somehow psychic abilities! Jason cursed quietly and stomped his foot in frustration. “Dick, you are a stay at home mom, you don’t make much money to begin with.”

“I work from home,” Dick clarified sternly, not even refuting that he was a stay-at-home mother to Damian. “I have a degree in English, I work as an editor. I just want Damian to come home to a loving embrace and a nice bowl of cereal after school, is that so bad?”

“You are turning into a suburban mom,” Jason snickered. Had he been in Gotham, he would have reached over and pinched Dick’s thigh. Now, though, his pinchers felt empty. 

Dick sighed heavily. “But it’s not a nice neighborhood, Little Wing, and I just worry. Timmy has been sneaking out and installing more security cameras on your block-“

“That was him?” Jason asked. “That creepy punk with the ripped jeans climbing up the drainpipe? He scared Mrs Rodriguez half to death-“

“Oh no-“

“-she thought that she saw El Chupacabra, and she was screaming! She’s eighty years old, Dick, her lung capacity is shit!”

Dick was wheezing from laughter on the other end. “Oh no, I’m so sorry Jay,” he laughed, then breathed. “But if you’d at least think about changing house-“

Then something clicked. “Wait,” Jason said. “Tim’s mission,” he realized. “The one that Damian was telling me about. Tim was stalking me, wasn’t he?”

Dick sighed. “We worry, Jay, that’s what family does.”

Jason huffed. “Yeah, well tell that to our mutual dad.”

Dick clinched his tongue. “He’s thickheaded. But this has been hard on him too, you know. He hasn’t been able to go to the toilet since you left,” Dick said quietly. “He’s really...struggling. With everything. Emotion clogs him up, Jay, you know that.”

Jason felt an odd emotion, but didn’t spend time categorizing it. “Let him eat prunes,” he said archly. 

Dick giggled. “Well, Timmy’s home for lunch, I’m going out help Alfred whip something up. Talk to you later, Jay! Muah! Muah!”

Jason grumbled. 

“You didn’t kiss me back!” Dick whined, and Jason felt his testicles retract into his body. 

“Muah,” he said hurriedly, before adding, “you moron,” and cutting the call. He turned around to come face to face with Rosa, who was watching with an arched eyebrow.

“Did you say something about a stalker, Jacob?” She asked. 

“Er...”

“I can beat him up,” she said. “I have a hammer.”

Jason stared at the tiny woman before him with renewed respect. “No gun?”

“I dunno how to use one,” she confessed. “Can’t be arsed to buy one either. But I can use a hammer!”

Jason smiled. “Thanks, but it’s fine. There was no stalker, just my brother.”

“Oh, one of those, eh?” Rosa said, nodding. “I know the type. Worrywarts.”

Jason burst out laughing. He loved his new life.


End file.
